Pages

Amazon Link

Sunday, November 13, 2011

This week in DVD - November 13th

The Change-Up

Here's the original review. I don't have much more to add about this one. I didn't really like this. I thought it was poorly written and relied too much on cheap humor. I probably would have liked this more if I had rented it instead of seeing it in the theater. If you really like Jason Bateman or Ryan Reynolds, then you'll probably enjoy it as a rental, but I don't think it's a good film.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II

My pointless origial review here. I say 'pointless' because this movie is critic proof. If you're a fan, you've already seen it or there's nothing I can say to sway your desire to see it or opinion about the movie. If you aren't a fan, then you aren't going to have any interest in it.

The good news is now that this is out, I can finally start to search for deals on buying the entire series box set on Blu-Ray. Keep an eye out on Black Friday. That might be a good time to pick it up.

Cars 2

I wasn't a huge fan of the first Cars movie. I've always thought it was the weakest of all of the Pixar films...until now. I liked Cars 2 even less than the first one. There are too many bad puns and way too much 'Larry the Cable Guy'. The animation is great though and it's about the only thing that kept me watching it. The story in Cars 2 was broken up too much and as I mentioned before focused too much on Mater. Even if he hadn't been voiced by 'Larry the Cable Guy', it's just not a very funny or interesting character to base a movie on.

It's a pass for anyone over the age of ten.

We Are the Night

German film about female, lesbian vampires. Do not even attempt to watch it with the English dub. It was so bad that I turned it off after two minutes and went with the original German audio track and subtitles.

It's about a lesbian vampire that turns other females into vampires when she thinks they are 'the one'. The one main problem with her process is that she keeps turning vampires that are into dudes or they don't love her back. You'd think an vampire hundreds of years old would have figured this out by now.

Anyway, We Are the Night was a missed opportunity They had some interesting ideas here with the vampires and some of the tricks they did, but it was just poorly written. Like one cool aspect is that they imply that only certain people can be changed, like it's a trait or gift. However, they don't explore that or explain it at all. It's just kind of mentioned in passing. Early in the movie you see them kill someone when they realize she can't be turned. It felt like a missed opportunity to do something different with vampire lore.

The movie was a little slow as well. When there was action, they used an artificial sped up effect, even when it was just humans. It was really hard to follow. The vampires are being pursued by a cop who has one of the funniest runs I've seen in a while. It's pretty close to Steven Segal's run as far as looking silly.

Another thing that felt screwed up was when they mention there are no male vampires. The females killed all the male vampires off and vow to not make anymore. When asked why, they said they were killed off because they were loud, arrogant and stupid. They then proceed to do a bunch of things that are loud, arrogant and stupid. The kid of stupid that makes you go, 'How have you not been caught your killed yourself by now?' One of the characters even remarks something along the lines of, 'we've never been good about cleaning up our messes after our kills.' So they admit to being careless and sloppy, just like the writing in the movie.

If it had been written better or had a better English dub, I might be able to recommend it, but I really can't.

African Cats

Here's one for fans of Discovery Channel and Nature programs. It's basically a nature documentary following a few different groups of lions and cheetahs. That's pretty much all there is to say about it. You're just watching what happens and Samuel L. Jackson narrates. I will say there are parts of this that have more tension than any thriller I've seen in a while. Then again, the stakes are higher here. They do show animals getting killed by other animals though. While it's not bloody, you might want to take care in showing this to young kids.

The movie is very beautiful. This is the definition of a movie that should be watched on Blu-Ray with a nice HDTV.

Anyway, this is a strong rental recommendation.

That's it for this week. If you need get a jump on your holiday shopping through Amazon.com, please support me by clicking on my link below and then using Amazon like you normally would.